This invention relates to a solid or cubic parking apparatus of the type in which cars are moved into and out of parking spaces formed in a vertical multi-stage fashion using an elevator, in which cars can be moved into and out of the spaces safely and smoothly.
A rack type cubic parking apparatus has been known, which comprises a combination of an elevator provided with a vertically movable carriage and parking spaces disposed in a multi-stage fashion along the passage on which the carriage vertically moves. For example, the present applicant has U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,730 as prior art, in which movement of a car into and out of a parking space is effected through a pallet so that the pallet with a car loaded thereon is transferred between a carriage for receiving a pallet to vertically move the same and a parking space provided with a shelf member for supporting the pallet. For the aforesaid transferring operation, there is employed a construction in which such operation is effected through an expansible fork device loaded on the carriage. That is, the fork device can extend horizontally toward the parking space in the state where the pallet is loaded thereon. After the fork device has extended directly above the shelf member, the carriage is moved down to transfer the pallet onto the shelf member whereby the pallet is transferred from the carriage to the parking space. When the pallet is transferred from the parking space to the carriage, the fork device is extended under the pallet, and the carriage is then moved up whereby the pallet is supported on the fork device, and thereafter the fork device is contracted to transfer the pallet onto the carriage.
However, according to such an apparatus as described above, when the pallet is transferred, the fork device extended from the carriage to the parking space bears the whole weight of the pallet being transferred and a car to load a large torsional moment to the carriage. Accordingly, this leads to a problem in that the whole apparatus need be formed in a large scale in order to support them in a stable manner. There further involved an inconvenience in that a dead space for the fork device was necessary below the pallet within the parking space, and therefore, effective utilization factor of a building height is low, and when the height of a building is restrained to a certain level, a large space for receiving lots of cars cannot be obtained.
On the other hand, in the cubic parking apparatus as described above, a plane-area home position is constituted by a space for an elevator and parking spaces on opposite sides thereof, and a pit is provided immediately below the home position whereby direction-turn of a car moved in and out is carried out by a turning device disposed in the pit. This provides advantages such that required floor areas in respective floors including the home position can be made the same, and since the car need not be moved back during the movement of the car into and out of the space, the operation for in and out movements becomes extremely easy, and the whole parking structure can be formed into a simple tower-like construction.
However, there is a further problem in that the aforementioned turning device has to be disposed on the lowest floor of the parking structure and cannot be provided on other floors. That is, the turning device has to be disposed at a central position of the home position. The turning device obstructs the vertical movement of the carriage, and the home position cannot be provided in the mid-floor. In order to solve this problem, it is contemplated that the turning device is loaded on the carriage so that the former is moved up and down along with the carriage. However, in the case where the heavy turning device is always moved up and down along with the carriage, an output required for an elevator driving device, a strength required for peripheral members supporting the carriage and the like excessively increase, being uneconomical.